Category: Paul (A)

First off today I need to do a bit of housekeeping. I’m sorry if I confused any of you with my post yesterday. If you are reading Eat Right 4 Your Type you must have wondered what I was on, going on about Tiers 1 & 2 foods. Eat Right was the pre-cursor to the book Live Right 4 Your Type in which Dr D’Adamo and his research team expanded on the food group idea and broke food groups in to Tier 1 & 2 and Secretor / Non Secretor status [apologises to Dr D in advance here] and in my own opinion made a concept that was simple to understand for people like me complex and too complicated to follow without medical advice. I own a copy of Live Right but still hold with the basic tenet of the Eat Right book as it is simpler for me to follow.

If you wish you should be able to get Live Right 4 Your Type from your local library to have a look at, then if you decide it’s for you go out and buy a copy [blatant plug to get me back in Dr D’s good books after the earlier comment]. If you decide to stay with Eat Right make sure you check your food status on the type base on this web site. Research is an inexact science and some foods status changed between publication of the two books.

Okay I’ve got that sorted, now to the subject of todays blog:-

There’s nothing exciting happening in my World at the moment apart from blooming good health of course. Actually it’s the middle of the working week so the routine is get up at 6.00 am, shower, breakfast and at work by 7.45 am. Home approx. 5.15 pm for tea and family.

Doing this blog thing has set me thinking a lot more about the Blood Type Diet and remembering things I did or didn’t do when I first started.

When you read the book or are given a diet by your Health Practitioner I think everyone’s first reaction is

OMG what am I going to eat.

So let’s look at a few alternatives

On my plan which is specific to me as a Type A the first things I had to eliminate were ;

1. Potatoes

2. Wheat

3. Tomato

4. Capsicum [Bell Pepper]

5. Chillies

6. Most Dairy product including all my fave cheeses

I was already Vegetarian which being Type A was a bonus, I didn’t have any meat products in my diet to eliminate. Here’s what I did.

1. My Wife and I had to look outside the square on this one. The traditional Western value of protein source and veg usually includes Potato. I had always eaten Rice although given a choice by the Wife I would plump for a spud [potato] every time. Well this had to change. We now use more rice or Couscous for our meals where we may have served Potato in the past

2. This one was easier. I know wheat is a neutral for secretor’s in LR4YT but in the earlier ER4YT it was an avoid for type A, I had terrific success dropping wheat from my diet and have kept it out completely. For the people that can tolerate it Spelt is a terrific first step to wheat substitution. We have gone further though as you would see from an earlier blog and also use Rye flour. As Type A’s we are fortunate to be able to use Gluten in our bread [with the exception of Non Secretor’s]. Pasta was an issue at the beginning but we are now able to source a huge variety of Rice, Spelt even Kamut noodles from our local Health Food Store. Pretty expensive though and we tend to source our rice noodles from the supermarket or Asian food stores. My wife makes a wicked vegetarian Bolognese type sauce with no tomato using rice pasta instead of traditional spaghetti noodles.

3. I had already started to eliminate tomato from my diet prior to starting BTD. The only meal we make that could use tomato would be in the above mentioned Bolognese sauce or a casserole. My wife makes a tremendous substitution using grated carrot, grated pumpkin and dried sweet paprika.

4. Probably the most difficult thing to find an alternative to. Miss the colour and flavour it can add to a dish.

5. No problem here, Didn’t use many before, don’t use any now. Still make a very nice Indian style dish with rice a dry vegetable curry with Tofu and dhal.

6. Frustrating this one. I used to enjoy Pecorino cheese [sheep’s milk] on my pasta and sheep’s milk should be neutral for me. I posted to Heidi some years back on this very issue and from memory the problem occurs with the aging of the cheese for Type A’s. I even have the same problem with Goat’s cheese. Apparently and I will stand corrected on this, the younger the cheese the better for us as Type A. I eat a Goat milk Feta now and that’s about it. The Soy cheese options available to us in Tasmania all include Casein which is a Type A avoid.

There you go now you know all my secrets. Remember to check the type base. and the recipe base regularly, there is always something new going on.